Galston: The Tea Party and the GOP Crackup

Ted Cruz and his followers represent Jacksonian America: angry and in full revolt against a new elite.

By

William A. Galston

Oct. 15, 2013 6:52 p.m. ET

More than a decade ago, before the post-9/11 national fervor set in,
Walter Russell Mead
published an insightful essay on the persistent "Jacksonian tradition" in American society. Jacksonians, he argued, embrace a distinctive code, whose key tenets include self-reliance, individualism, loyalty and courage.

Jacksonians care as passionately about the Second Amendment as Jeffersonians do about the First. They are suspicious of federal power, skeptical about do-gooding at home and abroad; they oppose federal taxes but favor benefits such as Social Security and Medicare that they regard as earned. Jacksonians are anti-elitist; they believe that the political and moral instincts of ordinary people are usually wiser than those of the experts and that, as Mr. Mead wrote, "while problems are complicated, solutions are simple."

That is why the Jacksonian hero defies the experts and entrenched elites and "dares to say what the people feel" without caring in the least what the liberal media will say about him. (Think
Ted Cruz
.
)

The tea party is Jacksonian America, aroused, angry and above all fearful, in full revolt against a new elite—backed by the new American demography—that threatens its interests and scorns its values.

ENLARGE

Sen. Ted Cruz works the line at a Washington, D.C., tea-party rally, Sept. 10.
jonathan ernst/Reuters

This is more than a columnist's speculation.
Stan Greenberg,
a Democratic survey researcher whose focus groups with Macomb County Reagan Democrats in Michigan transformed political discourse in the 1980s, has recently released a similar study of the tea party. Supporters of the tea party, he finds, see President
Obama
as anti-Christian, and the president's expansive use of executive authority evokes charges of "tyranny." Mr. Obama, they believe, is pursuing a conscious strategy of building political support by increasing Americans' dependence on government. A vast expansion of food stamps and disability programs and the push for immigration reform are key steps down that road.

But ObamaCare is the tipping point, the tea party believes. Unless the law is defunded, the land of limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility will be gone forever, and the new America, dominated by dependent minorities who assert their "rights" without accepting their responsibilities, will have no place for people like them.

For the tea party, ObamaCare is much more than a policy dispute; it is an existential struggle.

According to two benchmark surveys by the
New York Times
and the Public Religion Research Institute, tea-party supporters espouse an ensemble of conservative beliefs with special intensity. Fifty-eight percent think that minorities get too much attention from government, and 65% view immigrants as a burden on the country. Most of the respondents see President Obama as someone who doesn't understand them and doesn't share their values. In their eyes, he's an extreme liberal whose policies consistently favor the poor. In fact, 92% believe that he is moving the country toward socialism.

Many frustrated liberals, and not a few pundits, think that people who share these beliefs must be downscale and poorly educated. The New York Times survey found the opposite. Only 26% of tea-party supporters regard themselves as working class, versus 34% of the general population; 50% identify as middle class (versus 40% nationally); and 15% consider themselves upper-middle class (versus 10% nationally). Twenty-three percent are college graduates, and an additional 14% have postgraduate training, versus 15% and 10%, respectively, for the overall population. Conversely, only 29% of tea-party supporters have just a high-school education or less, versus 47% for all adults.

Although some tea-party supporters are libertarian, most are not. The Public Religion Research Institute found that fully 47% regard themselves as members of the Christian right, and 55% believe that America is a Christian nation today—not just in the past. On hot-button social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, tea partiers are aligned with social conservatives. Seventy-one percent of tea-party supporters regard themselves as conservatives.

Nor, finally, is the tea party an independent outside force putting pressure on Republicans, according to the survey. Fully 76% of its supporters either identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. Rather, they are a dissident reform movement within the party, determined to move it back toward true conservatism after what they see as the apostasies of the
Bush
years and the outrages of the Obama administration.

Many tea-party supporters are small businessmen who see taxes and regulations as direct threats to their livelihood. Unlike establishment Republicans who see potential gains from government programs such as infrastructure funding, these tea partiers regard most government spending as a deadweight loss. Because many of them run low-wage businesses on narrow margins, they believe that they have no choice but to fight measures, such as ObamaCare, that reduce their flexibility and raise their costs—measures to which large corporations with deeper pockets can adjust.

It's no coincidence that the strengthening influence of the tea party is driving a wedge between corporate America and the Republican Party. It's hard to see how the U.S. can govern itself unless corporate America pushes the Republican establishment to fight back against the tea party—or switches sides.

Identifying the Tea Party with Jackson is simply absurd. For one, Jackson had no time for "nullifiers," which is exactly what the TP is. They are more in line with the Know Nothing and Copperhead parties in their fierce rhetoric, unable to come to terms with a pluralistic, democratic America, which is what Jackson espoused. Try again!

I saw this person on C-Span this morning. He is trying to use high-falutin' phrasing to conceal playing the race card. He claims that the Tea Party is motivated by resentments against civil rights and immigration, which came into the culture 50 years ago. What came into the culture 50 years ago that tea partyers resent is big government progressivism. He reminds me of those academicians the Nazis had around to provide elevated context for their persecutions: It's OK because these people don't really deserve a hearing, or after a while, even a voice.

It is perhaps telling that Jackson presided over and encouraged one of the most shameful incidents in the life of our nation - the trail of tears - a forced march of thousands of Native Americans driven from their homes by greedy, grasping individualists who were driven by the competitive self interest Jackson promoted. That spirit is the death of all the is good about our country.

Thank you for the question. Our mid-Atlantic medical association explored the possibility of establishing an inter-referential Fee-For-Service (FFS) practice. In this case, an inter-referential practice requires the FFS participants to refer their patients to those physicians within our own community. There are many problems to consider and solve before going forward with an FSS practice. Chief among these problems is the cultivation of multiple representatives from every specialized practice for participation in our network (think Kaiser Permanente, without the overhead). Upon further discussion within our own community, and with like-minded legal representatives, we decided to query the more than 120,000 medical practitioners in the mid-Atlantic to benchmark their willingness to commit to such a endeavor. The queries hit the mailboxes in January of 2013. So far, the medical community’s response is less than awe-inspiring. To date we have received responses from eighteen thousand physicians asking how this would work. Unfortunately, for us, many of the respondents are primary care physicians looking for a way out of Obamacare.

More than a decade ago, before the post-9/11 national fervor set in, Walter Russell Mead published an insightful essay on the persistent "Jacksonian tradition" in American society. Jacksonians, he argued, embrace a distinctive code, whose key tenets include self-reliance, individualism, loyalty and courage.

Jacksonians care as passionately about the Second Amendment as Jeffersonians do about the First. They are suspicious of federal power, skeptical about do-gooding at home and abroad; they oppose federal taxes but favor benefits such as Social Security and Medicare that they regard as earned. Jacksonians are anti-elitist; they believe that the political and moral instincts of ordinary people are usually wiser than those of the experts and that, as Mr. Mead wrote, "while problems are complicated, solutions are simple."

The interesting question is whether Tea Party supporters will ever channel their concerns about elites not against liberal policymakers but against policies to favor big companies and wealthy individuals. If Republicans ran both houses of Congress, we would see more of this.

I too agree with Leonard Gostkowski and find William Galston’s column extremely offensive. It should come as no surprise that Galston would bash every American citizen who supports any of the many diverse Tea Party groups. If you check out Galston’s bio, you’ll learn he was Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy and Senior Adviser to the Gore for President Campaign. That alone should be enough to explain his secular progressive bias.

What I find most offensive, however, is the man’s arrogance and incompetence. Apparently he fancies himself some kind of an authority on American political history, for he arbitrarily puts all members of the various Tea Party groups into a single pigeon hole by declaring, “The tea party is Jacksonian America, aroused, angry and above all fearful, in full revolt against a new elite—backed by the new American demography—that threatens its interests and scorns its values.” [In addition to being historically inaccurate (no one who knows anything about Andrew Jackson would ever say he or his followers were “fearful”), this guy doesn’t even know how to construct a coherent sentence. By the time you get to the end of this one, you have no idea what the man is talking about!]

I suppose most Journal Community members can understand why the editors of the Wall Street Journal feel the need to hire an occasional left-leaning columnist to preserve the appearance of fairness and balance, but the least they could do is hire somebody who can write right!

That part of corporate America that is not already aligned with the Tea Party would do well to switch now while they can. They need reminding that "Crony Capitalism" is NOT Capitalism, it is corruption and is rampant in the so called "elite establishment" of BOTH parties. It is the source of George Wallace's insightful comment about the parties that, "There's not a dimes worth of difference between them"

John McCain is a sell-out. He and the "conservatives" in the gang of eight spent months stroking Chuck Schumer over an inevitable democrat open border immigration policy. Schumer and Reid (and McCain) obviously cannot be trusted to create any type of sane immigration policy.

And simultaneously, the Schumer and McCain immigration scam helped Obama by distracting the nation from a half dozen scandals which Obama had hanging over his head.

Seems like every time a socialist leftist gets in trouble, the centrist RINO, left leaning neo-con GOP comes to his or her rescue.

I think there is no conservative party in this country. I think the GOP has been taken over by big gov, neocon leftists who despise the right - but also despise the extreme socialist left represented by Obama.

What the old-school GOP creeps have in common with the Obama left, is they all despise the American middle class.

Republicans lost this battle because they attacked the wrong target. Democrats won because they ignored it. The problem is the income tax code, which has become indecipherable and oppressive. More money is spent preparing, planning and avoiding income taxes than is collected by the federal government. Nobody likes the income tax, even those who do not pay anything.

People pay for value, a fair price that relates to a fair benefit. The tax code and where the money goes are two of the greatest mysteries on earth. If all of our enemies got together and devised the most insidious and ruthless weapon imaginable, they could not produce anything more sinister that our current income tax system. The worst thing about it is that we all know how bad it is but only make it worse by adding complexities. It is a long and winding road to self-destructions.

If Mr. Boehner and the House wanted to really lead, they would propose a constitutional amendment that would require the income tax to be a simple and limited levy on income with no exemptions, exceptions, deductions, or loopholes. It would not require a stack of forms, lawyers, tax accountants, and software to prepare. It would not dictate policy or try to regulate social and business behavior. It would say -

"The government shall only collect a single, fixed percentage from any income to a citizen from any entity, domestic or foreign. There will be no exceptions or special provisions, including offset payments, discounts, rebates, deferments, loans. Income is anything that could be construed by a jury of citizens to be anything of value. This single fixed percentage will be defined by federal law each year based on the needs of the country and will apply to all income."

Mead's essay has it wrong. The below overstates the case but is more accurate than Mead. Readers can consult independent sources for verification.

Jackson himself was a wealthy slave owner who increased the power of the presidency, and supported the eviction of Native Americans to "The Hot Land" (Oklahoma) along what was later called "The Trail of Tears". His followers founded the modern Democratic Party whose first major stand was in support of slavery before the American Civil War. When the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, was elected southern Democrats took the South out of the US and became Confederates. When, after 600,00 casualties, the South was conquered, the Confederates reverted to being Democrats and invented Segregation, also called Apartheid in some parts of the World. This lasted through WWII when Republican president Dwight Eisenhower sent Federal Troops into the Democratically controlled South to enforce Brown vs The Board of Education. Finally, a few Democrats, most influentially Lyndon Johnson, supported the Civil and Voting Rights Acts - but Republican votes in Congress voted these acts into law, in both actual numbers and percentages. Today few will dispute that Democrats remain the champions of big government, big taxes, big mandates, and patronage of favored groups, while Republicans prefer a system of less taxation, fewer mandates, and more individual freedom.

The current impasse is because people are tapped out and cannot provide more resources to government. When one includes the hidden side of Social Security and Medicare taxes, incomes taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, etc., etc., etc., the average middle class family's tax rate is already approaching 50% - and that before Obamacare's mandates and premiums on insurance policies, etc. Additionally, non-financial mandates have de-facto converted the entire country into the World's largest union shop with an incredible arrays of work rules on hours, pay, benefits, life styles, etc. Indeed virtually every employer/employee relationship is likely technically illegal in some way. Doubters this may wish to consult some of the writings of civil liberties advocate Harvey Silverglate as space does permit discussion here.

Galston's solution of having the Republican Party support extracting more resources will not work. The populace is over taxed and over mandated, and the economy is in decline. That someone prominent in the profession of public policy should not know this says a lot about the value of policy research. Space does not permit discussion of economic recommendations but this reader's post re this column in the 25 September 2013 (print) edition has some suggestions. As for Republicans, they might as well stay the course. If they "switch sides" they will likely lose in 2014. If they lose in 2014 anyway the economy will get worse and the Democrats will be entirely to blame in 2016. It's the best position they can achieve.

@Julie--Maureen, you are right that we are terrified of the tea party. Their inability to govern, their lack of experience in legislating, their economic illiteracy are all very, very damaging to the country. Talk about scorched earth!!!!Julie, keep defending that Leviathan, it's working so well. Goliath, meet David.

"But ObamaCare is the tipping point, the tea party believes. Unless the law is defunded, the land of limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility will be gone forever..."

An alternative hypothesis is ObamaCare will fall under its own weight.

Meanwhile, the most extreme proponents of ObamaCare call it "the law of the land," the suggestion being that it is immutable, invulnerable to challenge.

(Of course, Plessy versus Ferguson ["Separate but Equal"] was once "the law of the land", too.)

All law, of course, is subject to change ... revision, reform, repeal, amendment. Indeed, the ObamaCare proponents may anticipate the collapse of ObamaCare as an opportunity to impose something even more far-reaching: a single-payer system, genuine "socialized medicine". Perhaps that's the threat our tea party friends should anticipate.

What does "socialized" mean? It means the public control of the supply-side (public control of the "means of production"). Physicians would be government employees. (Question: Would the system permit physicians to practice privately, or would it require anyone choosing to practice medicine to join the government guild?)

@duPrey --"...we would have done better had we been allowed to take the money taken from our paychecks and invested it ourselves"

First, who's "we"? Median income is around 51K/yr. That doesn't much for investment, nor are many members of "we" going to make wise choices in the market. And of course, there are the vagaries of the market itself. 2008 is not that long ago. People who had to cash out in those years took a significant loss on their life savings. Even if one's portfolio is now back where it was, the lost growth of those years is gone forever.For many people it would be decidedly unwise to throw away the guaranteed backstop of Social Security in exchange for the "freedom" to invest it themselves, which we all know many would not. And those unwise people who find themselves indigent in old age will not just disappear, but will continue to challenge and burden society.These days people should supplement Social Security with a private investment plan, but Social Security has been very successful in alleviating poverty in old age and is, in my view, a program we should take the trouble to preserve.

Maureen's reply: if a person had bought a 4% annuity with 6% of 51k over 40 yrs he would have a nice nest egg and would not be beholden to congress as to how he gets his own money. People seem able to "save" when money is taken out of their paychecks, I see no reason why they can't do the same on their own.

"Supporters of the tea party, he finds, see President Obama as anti-Christian, and the president's expansive use of executive authority evokes charges of "tyranny." Mr. Obama, they believe, is pursuing a conscious strategy of building political support by increasing Americans' dependence on government. A vast expansion of food stamps and disability programs and the push for immigration reform are key steps down that road."

Can anyone find Obama Pro-Christian, hesitant to use his authority(constitutional or not), and shrinking American's dependence on government?

Have food stamps usage, and disability programs shrunk?

Has Obama been tough on illegal immigration, making it clear that our borders are there for a reason?

I didn't think so.

Enemies of the Tea Party believe the exact same things about Obama's efforts.

The only difference is that they stand and applaud these very same steps.

The "author" Galstone has chosen to completely dismiss the fact that today 63 Percent of Americans DISAPPROVE of Barack Obama and they are certainly not all "Tea Party" members. Matter of fact, MOST of them are not associated with the Tea Party.

Barack Obama ignored Americans who were calling out for help as they were being slaughtered in Benghazi. Why? We don't know. He pleads the 5th. When we ask Hillary, she pleads the 5th. Hillary actually had the audacity to 'act' angry when questioned about the slaughter; as if it were beneath her to have to consider the questions Congress was asking her.

Barack Obama has disregarded National Security by failing to adhere to the requirements of the US Constitution that he "protect and defend" the Constitution. He is actually on record having said he will go around the Constitution and circumvent it in order to do his own will on America; which he has done. This is exactly how we ended up with the dysfunctional "Obamacare" program that is such an expensive fiasco.

Barack's "red line" in the sand over Syria is just another example of his stupidity. He had the audacity to draw his red lines and then couldn't back it up. But what did he do? Did he admit his error? Of course not. He blamed the "red lines" on ALL of America!

And how many of these examples do you want to read? Probably none, as you stick your head in the sand and ignore the failures of this idiot yet blame the repercussions on the "Tea Party" or some other group of Americans you have suavely divided? How about the IRS and the hundreds of actual VISITS made to the White House almost certain to discuss the covert snooping on right wing groups that Obama 'doesn't like'? What the heck kind of operation is Obama running up there anyway and who are you idiots who are enabling it?

There is too much trash coming out of this administration for Americans to ignore. That's why Obama's DISAPPROVAL rating is so high. Americans are a bit smarter than most of you 'journalistic' spin masters care to admit and it's certainly not just the so called "Tea Party" who is noticing. Maybe you should go into medicine and work with Obamacare and hang up the ol' typewriter. Journalism doesn't seem to be your natural calling.

It's about time somebody tried to understand who these people really are. They are not the bible thumping hayseeds who simply live somewhere in flyover country that Wall street looks down on. They are everyday Americans who are mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore. It's Wall street and the rest of the east coast smug, pompous media elites who are the ones who are blind and out of touch with this country.

The writer did a great job until this line: "It's hard to see how the U.S. can govern itself unless corporate America pushes the Republican establishment to fight back against the tea party—or switches sides."

How does fiscal conservatism, individual freedom and Constitutionally limited government stop the US from governing itself? And why does it threaten corporate America?

The Jacksonians also stem from a specific ethnocultural heritage, the so-called Scotch-Irish (who are borderland peoples from the British Isles and also part English); read "Albion's Seed" for a fascinating but long description of the British cultural roots of America's current political culture(s).

My neighbor, who is a democrat, considers my view of society and politics as arcane. Yet she knows my academic pedigree, source of income and my friends and their beliefs. She and I spoke at length about the PPACA and my decision to leave medical practice; a direct result of PPACA enactment. She asked: “what will you do for a living now that you’re not serving the common good?” I told her that the practice of medicine is to be controlled by the federal government, which will dictate whom I may treat and how I may treat them. In essence, I would become the equivalent of a corporate physician, who treats his fellow employees in accordance with the rules of the company. This woman cannot wrap her mind around the idea of best medical treatment for the patient and the patient’s family. In her view, the government, not the physician, is best qualified to decide who should receive treatment, and the type of treatment administered. My neighbor, upon seeing the diplomas display, commented: all this education and you can’t seem to understand the benefits of equality.

The next day, she marched over to our new neighbors, who are TEA Party members, and without introductions, lambasted them for not being members of the democratic party. After all, they are black and the democratic party has given so much to their cause of freedom. The neighbor politely asked her to leave his property.

Just as my neighbor finds my views archaic, I too cannot fathom the elemental drive of fear that makes her so afraid of being an individual, who is responsible for her own actions, prosperity and well-being.

The truth is that without government spending assets like stocks and homes will decline in value, thereby making people poorer and thus reluctant to spend money. Maybe deflation is our greatest threat and not inflation. By borrowing and spending money, the federal government is inflating asset values to unrealistic, unsustainable expectations.

The Tea Party is trying to prevent the economic collapse of the country by encouraging fiscal sanity via entitlement reform and deficit reduction. Is the Tea Party the only group of Americans that recognize that regardless of your political affiliation as Americans we all share the same dollar? If our dollar becomes worthless, what happens next to our economy?

The federal government borrows money to pay its bills thereby adding more debt that will incur more interest incurring more deficits incurring more debt. When this vicious cycle ends, America will cease being a great economic power and the civil unrest to follow will make Egypt's current civil unrest look like a walk on a beach.

Switch to the Tea Party now? Do you think that anybody who had not joined before this has been so impressed by the abilities they've displayed in the past three weeks that they'll choose to join now? Let me clear that up for you. There are 318 million people in the country. I doubt if you could find 318 people who fit that description.

Michael, your litany of problems with the income tax system is faultless, but your proposed solution still leaves its implementation in the hands of a corrupt or, at least, corruptible congress of politicians who will continue to use it to buy votes and exercise power over constituents. The answer to the problem is The Fair Tax which removes both the IRS AND a corruptible congress out of the picture. Check it out.

You make some very good points, among them that civil-wars require sacrifice, and if we want to win this one, we too must be willing to endure some sacrifices -- hopefully not lives, but certainly some economic.

My conclusion is that we need a new opposition party, and it isn't (or shouldn't be the Republicans). The Republicans should be allowed to go the way of the Whigs. I think we need a "generation-Y" centric new party, capable of reforming the corrupt entitlement-state that has been constructed on the theory that they are too dumb and/or gullible to realize how badly they're getting screwed by the "Age of Aquarius" baby-boomers (ie: the ones who didn't grow out of their liberal delusions at age 40).

The under-40 crowd doesn't have to pay off these delusional unfunded entitlements negotiated on their behalf by us -- we've already spent the money we put in several times over. And they don't have to pay the exorbitant health-care costs of two older generations either, most of whom are clinically obese, and will therefore have 5-10 times higher health care costs than the under-40 crowd. The dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about is that the biggest driver of our massive future health-care services liability is obesity itself, most of it amongst us older folks.

My authority on this is quoted here:

"The question [w]hether one generation of men has a right to bind another. . . is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also among the fundamental principles of every government. . . . I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living' . . .." (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Madison, Sep 6, 1789)

While I agree with the contention that O-care will implode and that Repubs should just get out of its way, the ones continuing this battle are much more caring about their fellow Americans than me. I'm good with elections having consequences and with voters getting what they deserve. The Cruz/Lee wing sees itself on a mission to protect people from their own decisions. Oddly, that flies in the face of individual liberty and personal responsibility though, ironically, so does O-care itself.

Because sadly, our large businesses have become too cozy with the government.

It's an unholy relationship built around regulations and money. It's also friendly to authoritarian/socialist government sorts. Easier to control a few hundred big businesses than millions of individual ones.

This "author" is no different than most others who get caught with their ulterior motives. We might wonder what inspires a journalist to 'create' such twisted spin. I'll admit, he did it quite eloquently but you're correct; his motive became clear as you read such fallacy as you pointed out. Good catch.

"Just as my neighbor finds my views archaic, I too cannot fathom the elemental drive of fear that makes her so afraid of being an individual, who is responsible for her own actions, prosperity and well-being."

I would argue that it's not fear. It's hatred. There's a consistent anti-human life thread running through Democrats today. They don't want you to leave any trace of your existence (carbon footprint). They convince pregnant women that what's growing inside them is not a human life, it's an obstacle to her freedom of choice. It's not fear -- don't kid yourself. Fear makes people vulnerable. Democrats are not vulnerable. Jealous of other people's belongings, yes. Hateful toward other people's success, check. Willing to make children feel guilty for "wasting" our resources? Absolutely. Happy to burden their own grandchildren with their debts? Of course!

Afraid? Never. They're more willing than anyone to waste a human life, even their own.

The same is true if the Republicans follow the reach accross the isle McCain and Graham and McConnell. I'll take standing on solid principle any day, win or lose. "Give me liberty or give me death" - Patrick Henry. If those Founders had thought like you, who knows where we'd be today.

The idea that all Democrats are smug and condescending, that they are mindless and thoughtless, is just silly. Democrats are not uniform. Some fit your stereotype, but most do not. Heck, some Republicans fit the same stereotype but most do not. Stop viewing people who have different opinions in such a demeaning way. All it does is make you less able to understand where they are coming from.

James: every Democrat I know thinks hey know better than everyone else how people should live.Most also are Dems because their parents were Dems and it's like supporting a college football team. One even said he doesn't have to think when he goes in the voting booth, he just marks the D's. the definition of a LIV!

Is that how you view all Democrats? Seriously? Do you know any? How did you arrive at this conclusion? Based on what evidence? I feel sorry for you. So wrapped up in hatred for others who don't share your beliefs. It really is very pathetic.

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